The General Services Administration’s website gsa.gov earned the largest overall score improvement in customer satisfaction among government sites during the past seven years.

The scores are compiled by ForeSee Results, an online customer satisfaction firm, which began measuring customer satisfaction in regard to websites in 1994. GSA has participated in ForeSee’s E-Government Satisfaction Index since 2003. In that time, GSA’s score improved 19 points, to an overall average score of 75 out of 100, ranking third out of 23 in the government department category.

“GSA's main website made a remarkable improvement, best we’ve ever seen,” said Larry Freed, President and CEO of ForeSee Results.

These results were highlighted in ForeSee’s latest satisfaction index, which was released Aug. 4. GSA.gov not only received the highest overall score improvement, but it scored higher than the 74.7 governmentwide average.

According to Freed, incremental improvement can result in a much more satisfying site experience for customers.

GSA.gov has been steadily getting better over the years, with the most recent redesign and relaunch occurring in July 2010. The new site aims to better communicate the relevance of GSA to a wider audience.

ForeSee measures customer satisfaction among 110 government sites every fiscal quarter using the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a methodology developed at the University of Michigan. Each participating website is rated on a 100-point scale. This allows for comparisons among websites, departments, and agencies.

Other government websites making the top five for improvement in overall customer satisfaction include Department of Defense's Tricare, Recreation.gov, the Government Accountability Office, and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

According to ForeSee, satisfaction scores are important because they illustrate areas that need improvement, which in turn leads to cost savings, improved efficiency, and increased participation. ForeSee lists online transparency, searchability, and functionality as vital areas where government websites must excel.